- All right, today I am so excited to bring you
(sighs) one of the most wonderful people in the world.
Cassy Joy is here.
Thanks for being here.
- Thank you for having me.
- Okay, so she is a master,
brilliant at figuring out how to save you money by cooking.
Mmm hmm, we all need her need her in our lives.
And you wrote an incredible book
called "Cook Once, Eat All Week".
I love that title.
It's so good.
- Right? - Doesn't everyone want that?
I want that.
- I want that.
- Yes, I know, like cook once, and you eat all week.
So, she's here to show us some recipes
that you can make from certain ingredients,
and you can eat all week,
and that will end up saving you money.
Because the grocery budget line item
is the one that gets busted all the time.
- Yes, yes, exactly.
It's like a runaway train for me,
especially if you're one of those people that likes food.
You get a little of this and a little of that.
- This looks good, this looks good, yeah,
but the plan is important.
And so, you're gonna show us everything we need to know
to cook once and eat all week.
- Yes.
Let's dig in. This is so exciting.
So, what we're doing here is
getting really creative and efficient.
We're taking three main ingredients,
and then turning those into three totally different dinners,
and we're combining a protein, a veggie and a starch.
And so, on this one, we have chicken.
We have broccoli as our vegetable.
- Broccoli is like the number one in our house.
- Perfect. - Yeah, my kids love broccoli.
- Always in the fridge, yes.
- Always there, yep.
- And then rice. Also, usually in the pantry, right?
And so, we're gonna turn those three very,
if you put those on a plate, you might be like, oh great.
It's just, it's supper, right? - Yes.
- And this is dinner,
but we're gonna get really creative
with some other fun flavors
and make it really fresh and interesting.
So, prep day, right?
When most people thinks of meal prep,
you're in the kitchen and you're prepping your food,
but we're really just going to prep those three ingredients
so that we can then turn those cooked pieces
into those different dinners.
- Yes, that's great.
- Okay, so we spend about an hour or so prepping our food
on the weekend, let's say a Saturday afternoon.
And so, what we're gonna do is
we're gonna take two chickens, whole chickens,
or you could get rotisserie.
- I was gonna say, I'm going to the rotisserie house.
Don't get mad, don't get mad.
- I would never, no.
That's great.
I always make this week with rotisserie chicken,
but if you found, let's say,
whole chickens on sale at the grocery store.
- Super inexpensive, yes, yep, do it.
- Grab 'em, grab two of 'em.
- Yep.
- So, we're gonna roast our chickens, two of 'em,
steam half of our broccoli,
and the other half, we're going to rice.
Have you ever made cauliflower rice?
- Made, no, eaten, yes.
(both laugh)
Wait, so broccoli rice?
- Yes, it's really exciting.
It's a green rice,
so we're going to steam half of our broccoli,
pulverize the other half,
and then, the rice, we're just gonna cook,
like you would on the pot.
That's pretty, it's easy enough, right?
That's your meal prep.
- That's all the prep you need.
- That's all the prep you need,
and then those pieces are done and cooked,
and we're just gonna move on to assemble.
- Perfect, perfect.
- Sound good? - That's it,
the three, three main ingredients,
and then you go onto the meals.
- Yes, exactly.
Okay, so this first meal that we're going to make
is chicken and broccoli fried rice.
So, to start it off, we're gonna crack a couple eggs
and we're going to whisk those up,
and then put those into a frying pan
with just a little bit of oil,
and then let those cook for about a minute and a half,
and then it's done.
And you just pour those into a separate bowl,
and they're ready to go.
And then, from there, we're going to,
to our skillet on the stove, add some fresh ginger.
And if you're not feeling up for grating fresh ginger,
that's okay, too.
- Or does powder work?
- You bet it works.
I've done it.
- Good, okay.
That makes me feel better.
I love my spice cabinet.
So does my mom.
Just open up your spice cabinet,
that's what she always tells me, so.
- Rachel, just open up your spice cabinet.
- I have lots of spices.
- Do you?
- That's great. - Ginger's in there.
- You can make anything, then.
- It's true.
- Okay.
- That's what she claims, yeah,
so you and her can be on the same team.
- Show her broccoli rice.
- Yeah, that's it.
- And blow her mind.
Okay, so we've got fresh ginger,
and I'm also going to put some minced garlic.
Again, you can use powdered if you want.
There's nothing wrong with that.
Okay, and then, what I like to do with these dishes,
so I am a nutritionist as part of my background,
and I can't help myself.
I want to get some colors
and some variations in these meals.
Carrots is an example, you know,
just something to give you a different color
to the meals that you're having this week,
but some shredded carrots go in.
The carrots are also a really great food
that you can freeze.
If carrots are in season,
you'll see them in the center aisle,
and you know, stickers are everywhere.
Just go ahead and grab 'em, shred 'em,
and then pack them into a bag and put them in your freezer.
It's a great way to freeze and take advantage of produce
when it's on sale and in season.
Okay, so we've got our carrots in there,
and now we're gonna add our chopped up broccoli, right?
That's from the beginning, that's from our prep day.
That goes into our skillet.
Look, all the veggies in this fried rice.
- So beautiful.
- Okay, so we're gonna let the vegetables steam
for a little bit.
I just let them simmer with that garlic and that ginger.
You can put a lid on it, let that steam,
and then, once that's ready to roll,
we're gonna take,
what we've done with our rotisserie chicken,
or your roasted air fryers,
if you've gone the old-fashioned route,
and we're going to shred the meat.
So, we're gonna add, I'm saving some of this chicken
for a future meal in the week,
so we're gonna add some of that into this dish,
toss it around, and then some of the other flavors
that will eventually go in here
are going to be some coconut aminos.
Have you ever cooked with these?
- No. - These are yummy.
- Okay.
- So, this is for folks who can't have soy sauce.
This is a great soy sauce alternative,
and then a little sesame oil as well.
Just a little bit. - I do love sesame oil.
- Oh, isn't it so good? - Yep.
- And then, just some salt and some pepper,
we add crushed red pepper. - Oh, no.
You don't want that yet.
You want crushed red pepper in there?
- Yeah, we'll go for it. - You want to?
- Yeah, you can eyeball it.
- Oh, here I go. - Nailed it.
- It might be a little crazy.
Might be a little crazy. - It's perfect.
Okay, and so, all of this is simmering on the stove.
You're just going to let that keep going.
You'll watch, the carrots are going to wilt a little bit.
The broccoli's gonna get a little soft,
and then, to seal the deal on this beautiful dish,
we have some of our already cooked rice.
- Yes. - Right?
And I'm going to go ahead and pour that right in
- [Rachel] About half of it?
- About half of it.
Of course, in "Cook Once, Eat All Week",
the book, we give you specific guidelines,
and we have free downloads on fedandfit.com.
- Oh, good, fedandfit.com.
- Yup. - Check that out.
- Yes, a little fresh cilantro to finish this meal,
and supper is ready. - Beautiful.
Okay, so your chicken fried rice, meal number one.
I love it.
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(gentle pop music)
Meal number two?
- Let's do it. - Okay.
Okay, so here we have a white chicken chili.
- Oh.
- And y'all, it's so easy.
- So good. - Yes.
Okay, so I'm gonna walk you through it,
and it's very, very simple. We're gonna go ahead and start
with a little bit of olive oil.
We're gonna pour that in here, and that's totally fine.
Olive oil, avocado, oil, butter.
All of those things are really interchangeable
when it comes to cooking fats.
So, we've got that,
and we're going to add a good hunk of onion, chopped.
- All right, I like onion.
- Do you like onion?
Okay, you and my husband would get along.
But he's one of those that'll just sit there
and eat it like an apple.
- Oh yeah, I don't do that.
(both laugh)
I don't like it that much, but I like it cooking.
Does he really?
- Oh, yeah. - Doesn't the Grinch do that?
- I think.
- Isn't that on "The Grinch" movie?
- Oh, that's totally it.
- I have little kids, obviously.
- I love it.
- We watch "The Grinch" a lot, and he's like
gnawing on his onion.
- Okay, then we're gonna add in some garlic,
right into our pan, and we're gonna saute these
until they're nice, and you can smell them.
- It smells great. - Right, exactly.
- If it smells good and it feels right,
go ahead and move on to the next step.
You're not going to break it. - Just keep going.
Follow the spirit and go.
- Yeah, exactly.
You're not gonna break it.
Okay, this is part of what gives this recipe
such a yummy flavor, are these canned green chiles.
This is another favorite of mine,
classic and Tex-Mex cuisine,
and we're gonna add a whole can.
I like to drain them first, but you don't have to,
if you want to get that extra yummy juices in there,
and then we're going to go ahead and add some of our spices.
We have oregano.
All right, so a good dose of those.
Go for it, cumin, yep.
- How much?
- Till it makes your heart happy.
I would say about a teaspoon or two,
and then we can do a little pepper.
And then, from here,
we're gonna go ahead and add our chicken broth.
And another thing that you can do,
this is one of my other favorite time-saving tips
and budget-friendly tips, is,
so we've made our rotisserie,
we have our rotisserie chicken,
or you've roasted those air fryers.
You can always take that, those bones,
with the pieces that are left over,
stick that in a pressure cooker or in a slow cooker.
You can make your own chicken broth.
- Oh, yes.
I've heard of people doing that.
I haven't done that,
but a lot of my friends do it, because it's so easy.
- It's so easy.
You're gonna love the broth, it's great.
Okay, so we've added our broth,
and then we're gonna add a can of white beans.
Y'all, these are optional.
If you're not into beans, or if you're not into
the next ingredient, corn, you can use fresh corn,
again, if it's in season and on sale,
or you can grab frozen, which is what I usually do,
because I've always got it in the freezer.
And then, once this is done, after about 10 to 15 minutes,
the thing that makes our chicken chili white is sour cream.
I'm going all in.
- [Rachel] Love it.
- Yes. - I love sour cream.
- And then, from here,
we're gonna add some fresh lime juice, brighten it up.
Okay, and then bacon takes this chili from-
- [Rachel] Average to amazing.
- Exactly, so our bacon goes in here,
sprinkle it on in there,
and then you're done.
Once the simmering has come to, it's done 15 minutes or so.
And then, what I like to do is really go big
with your toppings, and that really gives it, again,
that chili flavor or the feeling is fresh cilantro, again,
avocado and more bacon, if you like.
- There you go.
Oh, meal number two, easy, easy.
Okay, so the last and final third meal
to use with the ingredients.
- Yup, you ready?
- Is this where the broccoli rice comes in?
- Yup, it sure is.
You ready to make some green rice?
- Yes, I wanna know how you do this.
- Okay, broccoli chicken casserole with,
it's barbecue flavored.
Okay, so, what we're going to do to start is
we're going to take a little bit of butter,
and then we add our broccoli rice.
- Okay, food processor? - Food processor.
- Okay, I was like-
- Yeah, I should do rice with air quotes.
- Yeah, there you go, broccoli rice.
Broccoli rice. - Yes, exactly.
So, we have our broccoli rice,
and what we're going to do is
we're going to add that right into our saute pan.
And so, I like to cook it up, so we're just gonna saute it,
and then we're going to add some garlic powder,
make it feel, yes.
You know, we're just gonna go ahead
and press the easy button with this recipe.
Don't worry about minced garlic
if you don't want to chop it up,
and then some salt.
- Some pepper? - Yes, ma'am.
Some pepper.
And now, we're going to take our already cooked rice
that we made earlier in the week, right, on our prep day,
and we're just gonna pour that right in with our broccoli.
And what happens is it takes regular old white
or brown rice, whichever one you've got on hand,
and it just turns a green.
- [Rachel] This is a really yummy quickie health food hack.
- And this becomes the base of our casserole,
and this is such an easy, low maintenance recipe.
You can do this while, if you're folding laundry,
if you're working on the side,
if you're helping with homework,
whatever else is going on in your house.
You're not going to burn anything.
Nothing's gonna get broken.
- [Rachel] Right, right.
- If you have to take a minute,
and I'm just going to pour this into our casserole dish.
And now, what we're going to do is
we're going to take that beautiful chicken that we prepped.
- It's back, it's back. - It's back!
The chicken goes into a bowl.
We've already shredded this, right?
And I'm adding barbecue sauce, nothing fancy going on here.
You can make your own if you feel like it,
use your favorite brand.
- Hit the easy button.
I like that saying.
- You just hit that easy button, exactly.
It's gonna taste good either way.
- Yes.
- And we're just going to stir that chicken up,
again, bringing it a little bit back to life,
so you don't just feel like you're eating broccoli
and chicken and rice all week long, right?
These are totally different flavors.
- I was gonna say, all different flavors.
You got Asian, you got chili, you got barbecue.
- Yeah, exactly, something for everyone.
And then, our chicken gets sprinkled right on top
of our casserole.
And then, I'm going to add,
because what makes everything better?
- Bacon. - Oh, bacon.
- [Rachel] It's back.
- It's back.
And again, you can prep that earlier in the week
to save yourself some time the day of,
and then this goes into the oven at 350 degrees
for 30 minutes.
- [Rachel] And that's it.
You warm it up and you eat it.
- [Cassy] Supper's ready.
- [Rachel] And the kids love it.
- [Cassy] And they love it.
- Well, again, what I love is the planning aspect.
We talk about that a lot on the show.
You have to plan ahead.
If you just go into the week
not knowing what you're gonna eat,
you're gonna probably overspend.
- Yes.
- So knowing ahead of time what you're doing,
getting ingredients that it's easy to make
and it's inexpensive, right?
We're not trying to be like culinary chefs here.
We're trying to get people fed.
- Yes, yes. - That's the key, that's it.
Everyone needs to be fed,
and then being able to reuse stuff.
It literally is one of my favorite things,
when I can open up my refrigerator and I'm like,
oh, I have chicken leftover from these tacos.
- Yes. - So then I can throw it into,
like you can just reuse things.
It's just, ah, you feel productive and you're saving money.
And again, all really inexpensive, you guys.
So affordable, and website again?
- Fedandfit.com.
- Okay, and the book, where can I find it?
- [Cassy] "Cook Once, Eat All Week."
You can find it really anywhere books are sold.
- Perfect, so great.
Well, Cassy Joy Garcia, you're amazing.
Thank you,
thanks for coming on. - Thank you so much.
Thank you for having me.
- Again, easy meals, save that money.
(gentle pop music)